Garrigues has advised Caixa Catalunya, Spain’s fifth largest savings bank, on the €556.8m sale of half of its insurance business to leading Spanish insurer Mapfre.

Portuguese corporate and commercial boutique Baião Castro & Associados (BCS Advogados) and Brazilian firm Lotti e Araújo have agreed to establish an alliance intended to enable each to extend their international reach.

Uría Menendez has advised forest management and biomass company Grupo Ence on a €130m rights issue – the first share placing on the Spanish stock Exchange this year.

A new ten-lawyer multidisciplinary boutique, Nicea Abogados, has opened in Madrid established by senior lawyers from DLA Piper, Eversheds Lupicinio and Zabía Abogados, that is looking to compete directly with the topfirms in the market.

The imminent arrival of Joaquín Almunia as the new EC Competition Commissioner, replacing Nellie Kroes, may well prompt a change in approach on the issues of antitrust damages, provision of due process for companies under investigation by regulators and relaxation of State aid rules, say competition lawyers.

A difficult 2009 has lead to insolvencies across the sector but some bright spots remain

Energy companies now looking out to sea while producers are left stranded

Bond issuances at record highs as companies continue to restructure debt

European company treasurers, facing record debt maturities in 2011, are aware that governments will also be making record amounts of sovereign issues in 2010. Many have therefore been anxious to take advantage of the current historically low interest rates, say lawyers.

Controversial levy on media operators signals dramatic market changes to come

Loss of patent exclusivity leads brands to seek new blockbusters and law firms to find clients

Eight of the world's top ten selling brand-name medicines, with combined annual revenues of €32bn will lose their patented status during the next five years. Unsurprisingly, manufacturers of generic equivalents are looking to produce their own versions of blockbuster drugs like Lipitor (Pfizer's anti-cholesterol product), Zyprexa (Eli Lilly's treatment for schizophrenia), Seretide (GlaxoSmithKline's asthma control) and Diovan (Novartis' high-blood pressure treatment). What happens globally inevitably impacts Iberia.

Movement indicating subtle changes in direction as firms respond to the crisis

2009 may be remembered as both the most difficult year the Iberian legal sector has ever had to face and for the upheaval seen in the management of many of its leading law firms - to a certain extent the two seem connected.

European In-House College 2010 addresses challenges of leading an in-house legal team

How to organise an in-house legal team and add more value to the business was the challenge for participants attending this year´s European In-House College, held in February in Madrid.